Microsoft is expected to announce today its plan for more than 6,000 layoffs, as the Redmond software giant pares overlapping roles resulting from its acquisition of Nokia's smartphone business, Reuters reported.

Microsoft gained 25,000 Nokia employees during the April acquisition, 4,700 of them based in Nokia's native Finland. According to Finnish media, 1,000 of Microsoft's cuts will be in the Scandinavian country of just under 5.5m, at a time when its economy is shrinking.

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Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella last week circulated a memo in which he outlined his plan for a more streamlined and efficient company. Bloomberg subsequently cited two insiders who warned of job cuts that would eclipse Nadella's predecessor Steve Ballmer's post-crunch cull of 5,800 in 2009.

Outside of its Nokia inheritance, Microsoft may also trim fat in its Xbox division and marketing and engineering functions. Nadella has previously indicated that he considers dedicated software testers redundant in the age of cloud computing.